Worn Out Furniture Gets a Statement-Revamp by Brazilian Artists

Design with recycled materials, more often than not, is more about making a statement than about recovering resources: as much as you want to say you're saving the planet for making lamps with PET bottles, the scope of your endeavor will never be as significant as, say, recycling thousands of them industrially.

Still, when pieces are made where undervalued materials are used in creative ways, the items make people stop and think, see the atoms and bits of whatever seemed like trash in its purely material form and appreciate it. Especially if the new product is signed by a famous artist or exposed at a posh store.

Such is the case of the Conserta-se móveis – tratar aqui (We fix furniture, ask here) collection: a set of worn out chairs and tables which were intervened by Carolina Armellini and Paulo Biacchi, from Curitiba-based studio Fetiche, and exposed in March/April at MiCasa, a big shop featuring imported and local design furniture located at the upscale Jardim America in Sao Paulo.

In an interview with Brazilian magazine Casa Vogue, the designers said the collection came out from a period of frustration with the industry and its inability to produce innovative design, to which they responded with handmade provocative pieces.

The rough aesthetics are not for everyone and I know I will receive comments calling this horrible, but I like how the purpose of the project seems to have been not transforming the furniture to no recognition, but exposing its imperfections and history.

With a variation of color and material, they are also a god DIY idea if you have some chairs that need a remake. More at the firm's website.